Word: colombia
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Several former officials of the Ecuadorian government had ties with Colombia's Marxist guerrillas, a commission named by President Rafael Correa conceded Tuesday. The announcement is sure to stir up new questions about how deeply South America's political left, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, has aided a rebel force condemned worldwide as drug traffickers and terrorists. And it raises the risk, said the commission's coordinator, Francisco Huerta, that Ecuador is "becoming a narco-democracy...
Correa, a Chávez ally, set up the commission review last spring to independently investigate a controversial raid by Colombian commandos on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) camp in Angostura, just inside Ecuador, as well as allegations that Ecuador was supporting the rebels. Colombia assaulted the camp on March 1, 2008, killing nearly two dozen people, including one of the guerrillas' top commanders, who is known as Raul Reyes. The attack was criticized throughout Latin America for violating Ecuadorian territory. But the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe argued that laptops found by Colombian troops during...
...report also says the U.S. may have supported Colombia's attack logistically with information from a mysterious Hercules C-130 flight at the time of the raid from a U.S. base at Manta, Ecuador, which has since been closed. U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges has denied any such involvement. Yesterday, the House of Representatives approved a 12-month extension of trade preferences for Ecuadorian goods linked to the country's cooperation in fighting narcotics smuggling. (Read "Ecuador vs. Chevron: Do the Videos Implicate the Judge...
Drug seizures inside Ecuador provide evidence that the FARC, having been seriously weakened by Uribe's military drive against them, have increasingly begun to refine cocaine in Ecuador rather than just smuggling it. Ecuadorian police have discovered numerous drug labs near the borders with Colombia and Peru as well as on farms deep inside the South American country, including one just west of the capital, Quito. René Vargas Pazzos, a retired general and former ambassador to Venezuela, rented a farm to a FARC commander, the report says. As a result, Huerta warned that Ecuador faces the same corrosive influence...
...Obama has turned what should have been a routine transfer of U.S. anti-drug operations into a diplomatic row. By not consulting the continent's leaders about U.S. plans to use Colombian military bases not just for drug interdiction but also counter-insurgency work, which could theoretically spill over Colombia's borders, he needlessly revived deep-seated fears of yanqui military interventionism south of the border and raised the hackles of U.S. allies like Brazil and Chile. It was the kind of dismissive display that Bush was best known for in Latin America - and a gift to the anti...